The Best Things in Sports - 2005

Ah, what a year in sports.

1. Two teams which were not named New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox played in the World Series.

2. One team, the Chicago White Sox, made the nation's second-most self-absorbed fans, Cubbies, feel even worse.

3. Major league baseball created the "World Baseball Classic" so that Latin American players who play in the U.S. most of the year earning millions of American dollars before millions of American fans could pretend to represent another country for a couple of weeks.

4. It's now possible for me to follow the first few innings of a S.F. Giants road game over the Internet, follow the middle innings driving home on my car radio and catch the conclusion over cable television when I get home; proving that the 21st century knows how to give a man what he really needs (we can cure cancer in the 22nd century, unless a beer commercial is on.)

5. Fans who would boo Santa Claus, in Philadelphia, got to taste the bitter dregs of coming oh, so close, in the Super Bowl.

6. Those same fans had to put up with Terrell Owens, whose individual self-absorption could swallow Boston and north Chicago without burping.

7. Pro football lost a still highly rated Monday night game on universal broadcast and few cared because it's just flipping places with now-almost universal Sunday night cable.

8. The New Orleans Saints promised to not move to Los Angeles; sparing us a name, "Los Angeles Saints", which would be almost, but not quite, as ridiculous as "Utah Jazz".

9. The NBA once again proved it's nothing but a bunch of overpaid thugs supported by clueless overpaid fans.

10. Sacramento, California, still refused to be suckered into spending over a quarter of a million tax dollars so the millionaire owners of the Kings basketball team could pay its millionaire players.

11. There was no professional hockey of any consequence for the first half of the year.

12. Soccer continued to prove that if there's one thing Americans are smart about, it's that kicking a ball back and forth and back and forth and back and forth is a great Saturday morning exercise for your nine-year-old but nothing true sports fans should take seriously.

13. Any population which can afford to spend this much time and money amusing itself through pro sports proves itself truly blessed.

The Best Thing That Happened in 2005

2005 opened up with President Bush at a seeming all-time political high. He won re-election by a far easier margin than seemed likely just a few weeks before Election Day. His party’s congressional majority was stronger. The political world, it seemed, was his oyster. For believers in truth, justice, peace and the real American Way, it seemed a dark, dark time indeed. What nefarious horrors would the denizens of darkness hurl upon the land?

It turns out that the dark denizens chose to slay the one beast the highest of the high Democratic archangels, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, set up to be indestructible. Social Security. That decision by the High Priest of the Deep Dark, Karl Rove, exercised through his puppet, George W. Bush, was the best thing that happened in 2005.

Bush’s crushing defeat heralded a year of constant downward slide, not into perdition (that comes later, according to Bush’s own beliefs) but into political weakness and irrelevancy. Almost nothing he proposed to do even more harm to the country was possible.

It was a weird thing to try to knock off. There was no great public cry to destroy Social Security. There’s legitimate concern over where it’s headed, but I heard that twenty years ago in college. There’s always going to be concern. But the reason it’s invulnerable was due to a very crafty key provision St. FDR put into the system.

Social Security isn’t welfare. It’s not “need-based.” It’s income-based. And there’s the genius. As long as the great middle class is paying in it’ll expect a pay out come retirement. And the great middle class constitutes the great American voter. It’s not a progressively fair program in terms of who gives and who gets, but it’s politically impossible to eliminate, maintaining the moral commitment to those who need it.

It’s like trying to get rid of Santa Claus. It ain’t gonna happen.

Not only did the defeat make Bush suddenly vulnerable right at the top of his second term but it eliminated any real hope of a personal bond with the majority of voters. Bush won the election. But there was little love for the man across the board. Without that personal commitment, Bush had little to keep moving on in his second term outside of wise policy initiatives, and he blew that right out of the gate.

This vulnerability is what I suspect helped prompt the New York Times to release its information on the government’s illegal spying inside the USA when the Patriot Act was under review. A strong Bush would have blasted back at their “unpatrioticness”; and the GOP and talk radio stormtroopers would have rallied against the “liberal press” and all. But it didn’t happen.

Weakened by the Social Security debacle, Bush reeled from issue to issue over the years. He lost control of the budget debate. The budget which came up in the fall ticked off almost every piece of the GOP in some way, either spending too much on everything or not enough on some things. Bush was down far enough for the NYT to exercise its moral duty to truth and informed political debate.

Who knew then what a great thing it was? After the worst thing in 2005 being Bush re-elected, who would have known that the best thing just a year later was that election being rendered almost irrelevant? Time, he can be a funny guy.

Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa starts today, which means I have to look forward to a week of people asking me if I celebrate Kwanzaa.

Black people never ask me this. Only white people do.

It seems to be one of those “defining” questions. Conservatively included white folks seem to assume that telling them that I don’t celebrate Kwanzaa indicates a blanket rejection of all things “black” or “African American.” Progressively included white folks cock their heads and ask “Why not?”

Christmas meets all my holiday season needs. Since it also comes along with my birthday and wedding anniversary, I end up with a chock full schedule on top of it. I like Christmas because of its winter solstice celebration aspects. It promises the end of the long nights, and a defense against seasonal “affect.” I like the celebration of the birth of Jesus, a great spiritual teacher. Most of all, I like the recollection of childhood Christmases past. Kwanzaa doesn’t offer any of that to me.

I’m essentially “pre-Kwanzaa”. The holiday didn’t really take root until the 1980’s, when African Americans moving into the larger society were looking for a way to hold onto a distinct cultural heritage. I was still celebrating Christmas with my friends and my mother, who by then was living alone. I then took up with my wife, and spent time with her family getting to know them (and getting married right after Christmas.)

I pretty much know more about African and African American history than most dashiki-wearers I’ve ever met. Being a Thoreau-by-the-pond type, the intellectual connection suits me fine.

The only issue I have with Kwanzaa is the use of Swahili, an Arabic-based trade language spoken on the east coast of Africa, far away from where African Americans’ ancestors were enslaved. It became “hip” during the ‘60s (even Lt. Uhura on ‘Star Trek’ spoke it) and stayed around. It was the language of Tanzanian president Julius Nyrere, whose economic self-help philosophy became part of the basis for the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. So it fit, even though it’s historically inaccurate as a “connection” to Mother Africa. But that’s a small quibble.

One of the charges leveled against Kwanzaa is that it’s an “invented holiday.” Heck, all holidays are invented. Christmas only took off when the mercantile economy

Peace on Earth

A few words from the ages on this birthday celebration of a very wise spiritual teacher:

From those who foretold the teacher's birth:

“’There is no peace for the wicked,’ says my God.” Isaiah 57:21 (New Living Translation Bible, NLT)


… from those who carried on the teacher's work:

“Do your part to live in peace with everyone, as much as possible.” Romans 12:18 (NLT)


… and from the mouth of the teacher hisownself.

“God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9 (NLT)


Sigh. If only the current national administration could read these words. But they clearly haven’t, so I guess it’s the fiery pit for all of them.

Which is probably for the best. I couldn’t imagine sitting across the table from Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney for all eternity.

Merry Christmas.

And Happy Holidays.


Graphic from: http://www.peacecoalition.org

Merry Birthday!

Every year, someone decides to run a story about the poor, unfortunate souls who were unlucky enough to be born near Christmas. This year, the local Sacramento Bee drew the lot (go here for the article). They didn't do a half bad job but it still stands for me to set the record straight.

I'm a Christmas (Eve) birthday babe. And I like it.

It's a great time to have a birthday. Everyone's already in a party mood.

The only real pain are the ding-a-lings who want to offer me their sympathy. Them I wanna smack.

As a kid, my mom always made me a special German chocolate cake, my favorite. No prob. She was already cooking up a storm for Christmas, so an elaborate homemade cake fit right in, and there was alwauys leftover for the holiday dinner.

I got to open my birthday gifts before Christmas gifts for sure, but everyone else shared the fun because my mother let all the kids open one Christmas gift early so we all partied. Last year, I honored that tradition in my house by having my then-six-year-old son and his three cousins open an early gift at my house during my Evenight birthday party too. Took me back ...

It got better as I got older. My high school and college friends often threw me a boogie night before Christmas. There's nothing better than having "Happy Birthday!" sung to you on a cold, clear night on top of San Francisco's Twin Peaks (go here to see the breathtaking view) after listening to Christmas carols in Union Square. School was out, Christmas club or holiday job money was in, and as several friends told me over the years, "This is where were you hang with the people you want to celebrate the season with", as opposed to holidays with family members you can't stand to be in the same zip code with.

Out of school, I've often thrown a Christmas Eve or birthday bash before Eve, party and I've never had a problem filling the guest list. Again, it's a time to party, so can you ask for a better time to have been born?

So I agree with the woman in the Bee story who said she felt sorry for poor dears born in the middle of summer. I've got in-laws and friends born in July and August and their birthdays get passed over because everyone's gone to the Riviera. (My wife is an exception; she was born on Memorial Day and we celebrate every year with a hello-summer BBQ.) Me, I never have to worry about that.

Of course, then there is the former co-worker born on December 31st. She clearly has the best of all possible worlds.

Like me, she has the advantage of a birthday which really marks the end of one year and the start of another. I find myself reviewing the past year and planning for the next because it is a new year in all ways. It gives me a strong sense of winter solstice rebirth, which is probably why I've always felt so strongly about the holiday season.

So all you poor schlepps out there who weren't fortunate enough to be born around Christmas, I down a full cup of holiday egg nog to you. You truly have my deepest, deepest sympathies.

The Green Street Reds

Yesterday's note about a UPN show spilling the beans on Santa Claus reminds me of what's probably the greatest faux pas in anti-Santa history.

In December 1983 a SanFrancisco teevee news program decided to run a report on the presumably evil activities of the local Soviet Consulate, on Green Street in the Marina District (a toney neighborhood overlooking the Bay; you'd think the vanguard of the workers would have hung out in more proletarian digs, but I digress ...).

To promote the report, the show ran the following primetime promo (as close as I can recall, but it's pretty accurate):

A slow, deep, very serious voice tells us that "here, within our very city, there are people are hard at work undermining our values, our nation, our very way of life."

As the speaker is telling this, a cartoon Santa and reindeer merrily soar across the city skyline.

"'Green Street Reds', don't miss it!"

Suddenly, a missile roars in and blows Santa right out of the sky.

Within minutes, the station's switchboards light up like, well, Christmas trees, as outraged parents trying to calm kids screaming, "Mommy! Daddy! Someone killed Santa Claus!" let 'em know just what they thought of this little exercise in "Shock and Awe."

A subdued station humbly apologized. Later, it was revealed that a couple of dads had threatened to come down and kick someone's butt over this.

Lesson: don't mess with Santa. If for no other reason, the fact that he knows who' s naughty and who's nice means he's probably on the National Security Agency spy payroll and you don't want our president to pull the FBI off keeping tabs on terrorist organic farmers to come after you.

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A Blonde Buys Christmas Stamps

A blonde woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards. She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Christmas stamps?"

The clerk replies, "What denomination?"

The woman says, "God help us. Has it come to this? Okay, give me 6 Catholic, 12 Presbyterian, 10 Lutheran and 22 Baptists."

Yes, Virginia ...

Excerpted From CNN.Com ...

Chris Rock show gives away Santa secret

'Everybody Hates Chris' earns a few complaints

NEW YORK (AP) -- Yes, Chris Rock, there is a Santa Claus.

Parents with young children who happened to watch "Everybody Hates Chris" in the past week had some explaining to do when the character of Rock's brother suddenly told his younger sister that Santa doesn't exist."Everybody knows there's no Santa Claus," Drew said to Tonya on the UPN sitcom. "Come here, let me show you something. I'm taking you to the toys ... Santa doesn't come down the chimney. We don't even have a chimney. We have radiators."

Disillusioned, she stomps out of the room.

But wait. It gets worse.

Put on the spot, Tonya's dad Julius tells her the Easter bunny and tooth fairy don't exist, either."Somebody better give me my teeth back," the girl fumes.

A blindsided UPN received "a handful" of complaints about the Santa expose on its sitcom based loosely on comic Rock's life growing up in Brooklyn, a spokeswoman said.

………………………………………………………………..

On the show, young Tonya becomes a lot more cynical. Her mother explains that Santa Claus is a symbol and asks: "So you do understand?""Yeah," the girl replies. "It's OK to lie."

-----------------------------------------------

This story jumped out at me today because my seven-year-old son is at that age where the myths and legends of young childhood are to be questioned. When I tell him we should donate a toy to a local charity drive for poor kids, he asks, “Why wouldn’t Santa give a little boy or girl presents on Christmas?”

He caught me in a logical fallacy. If the toys are coming from a magical workshop at the North Pole, why is being poor a problem? He asked a similar question after watching (the absolutely marvelous) “The Polar Express”, about a magical train to Santa's workshop at he North Pole. The story featured a child from, literally, the other side of the tracks who was thrilled to get a gift from Santa. I got around that one by telling him that since the boy didn’t receive anything the –rest- of the year he was even happier to get something on Christmas.

I’m sure that deep down deep my son knows that Santa Claus isn’t real. He overheard my wife and me discussing gifts the other night and seemed happy at the news. He’s already received some gifts from friends and family, so he knows that Santa’s not an exclusive franchise. But he –wants- to believe.

After watching “The Polar Express” he wanted, nay, -insisted- that he be awarded a magical train ride too. Last year he wanted to sleep in the living room on Christmas Eve. I know it’s so he could see Santa at work. The year before he wanted to leave out another set of milk and cookies on Christmas night, to summon an immediate return visit.

My son loves magic. He loves stories about magical warriors and hidden doors to fabulous worlds. He loves magical creatures, elves and wizards and goblins. The world is just so much more dynamic, colorful and detailed when magic is factored in.

This is part of why Christmas commands such an emotional pull on us. So many holiday songs speak of going “home for the holidays.” What they’re reminding us is the time we believed in magical Christmases, before we had to grow up and it turned into worrying if our Christmas club savings account was fully stocked and post-holiday credit card bills if it wasn’t. We liked the magic.

We mere mortals just need to believe in magic. Every culture in human memory has developed a full litany of myths to give texture and meaning to their world. Some stories are political, from the mystical twins to founded Rome to George Washington and the cherry tree. We need to believe that our leaders are somehow graced by a magical touch which gave them the skills and abilities to take charge. Curiously, perhaps, even republicans and democrats (small letters) from ancient Rome to America need to believe this. (And our leaders are plumb eager to have us believe this.)

Higher up the reality ladder, we also need to believe that there’s a moral order to the universe which rewards and punishes. Out in the mysterious East, it’s generally set by our own acts. West of all that, including the Muslim world, people prefer judgment handed down by divine fiat, from Odin in Valhalla to the fiery pit reserved for Satan and his angels (including really rotten people, like that jerk who cut you off in traffic and gave you the bird).

After all, isn’t that what Santa Claus is for kids, training wheels to magical moral judgments? The fact that they take to it so easily shows that it meets a real fundamental need of the human race. We need to believe in magic.

So when my son asks me if Santa is real, I tell him, of course, but only to people who believe he’s real. That satisfies him for the most part. My allies in this are most of the cartoons he watches this time of year. Relieving doubt about Santa is a constant theme. Like good capitalists, Cartoon Network and the rest know how to find a need and fill it.

I Spy

For several years now I’ve been telling people asking me to sign petitions to “Impeach Bush!” to go away and leave me alone. “But he –lied-!”, they said.

Big deal, I replied. Politicians stretch reality every day of the week. It’s our job as citizens to sift the truth from the crap and vote, write letters, protest, whatever fits. But impeachment is something else.

Impeachment was set up in the Constitution to deal with federal officials who had broken an actual law, to force removal from office prior to criminal prosecution. Wandering into a stupid war in Iraq was, well, stupid, but certainly not impeachable.

Now we’ve got something to impeach someone over. Illegal spying inside the US of A.

It won’t happen, of course. To get an impeachment started you need different parties in Congress and the White House, as with Nixon and Clinton, or different factions, as with Andrew Johnson. A Republican Congress ain’t gonna throw Georgie out, pure and simple. But it can make his job even more uncomfortable and hopefully preserve a few civil liberties in the process.

There’s an old courthouse joke which goes: “If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts.”

“If neither is on your side, pound on the table.” The Bush administration is pounding on the table right now over the disclosure of illegal domestic spying because there ain’t no law or fact on its side.

Go here to read the administration's legal "defense" of its illegal spying.

Congress gave him the authority? That seems to be news to the Republican-run Congress, which is set to hold hearings on the matter.

He has the inherent authority to spy as commander-in-chief? That’s news to big fans of democracy all the way back to the Magna Carta. One of the fundamental points of democratic theory and practice is placing executive power under the law. Justice Robert Jackson reminded President Truman when he slapped down Truman’s seizure of the steel mills under presumed war powers. Heck, even George Will agrees, in his first column on this mess. Bush couldn’t and shouldn’t be “authorizing” spying he ain’t got the authority to authorize. You just can’t exercise power you ain’t got in the first place.

It’s "illegal spying," no matter what it’s otherwise called. So far the media’s giving him a wash on the terminology, calling “unauthorized domestic surveillance” at worst. Given the press’s general sissiness regarding Bush, I suppose it’s the best we can ask for. But the rest of us know better. It’s “illegal spying”. That’s the way to describe it to friends and family when the subject comes up. Eventually, the truth might stick.

Bush’s minions have ripped the New York Times for releasing the story right as the “Patriot” Act was being reviewed. Ah ha! they cry. More liberal media … whatever!

In fact, the Times should be commended for its timing. What better service can the media provide than to release news when the law governing what the news is all about is being reviewed? Bush, hardheaded to the bitter end, not only admits his crime, he says he’ll just keep on doing it, goading Congress to make him stop.

Poor timing? Just in time, one should say. Even more so, with the complementary news that the FBI is once again after the hairy legged tree hugger ‘terrorists’ out there.

Where is gonna go? It could go in any direction. Congress could hold hearings, wring its hands and do nothing. not wanting to embarrass a same party president in the White House.

Congress could set actually up real judicial review and actual congressional oversight, not whispers in the dark to a few select cronies. Yeah, right.

But there is hope. When Republican Senator John Sununu, R-NH, son of the famous same named rightwing nutcase, agrees, the situation’s dire. When Bob Barr and the ACLU are on the same side, you know the situation’s critical. When even George Will has to catch a breath, the situation’s at the breaking point.

The fact that it’s a Republican president involved makes the need for checks and balances even more apparent. For years, the GOP argued that Democratic political philosophy inherently led to greater government power and that placing the GOP was the only way to stop it.

Now we see that it’s not a philosophical issue at all. It's a matter of simple power. Those who have it want to use it, regardless of purported ideology. The Framers, wise men, set up a checks and balances to hold power in check. I suppose it’s only right and proper then that it’s the GOP, the gang which says it promotes constitutional ideals best above all others, which ends up proving the point.

'Tis the Season

Meanwhile, around my lovely hometown …

Wal-Mart Confronted on 'Happy Holidays'

By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A group of religious protesters demonstrated outside a Wal-Mart superstore Saturday, hoping to turn away customers by calling attention to the retailer's decision to use "happy holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" in its seasonal advertising.
But even shoppers who agreed with the protesters weren't willing to interrupt their quest for holiday deals.

"I believe in Christ, and I don't like the use of 'xmas' or the use of 'happy holidays,'" said Steven Van Noy, 39, as he left the store loaded down with packages. "The bottom line is that they had what I needed at Wal-Mart, so I went to Wal-Mart to buy it."

Controversy over the secularization of Christmas is nothing new, but this year religious groups are publicly taking on retailers who have decided to tone down the religious aspects of the holiday in their store decorations and promotional material.

In an online petition, the American Family Association recently gathered more than 500,000 signatures asking Target to include Christmas in its promotions. Stores such as Sears and Wal-Mart are facing boycotts.
…………

About 50 protesters took part in Saturday's demonstration, organized by religious leaders. Dick Otterstad of the Church of the Divide donned a Santa Claus costume and greeted shoppers with the message: Don't forget about the meaning of Christmas.

"It is insulting that Wal-Mart has chosen to ignore the reason for the season," Otterstad said.

"Taking the word 'Christmas' out of the holiday implies there's something sinful about it. ... This is a part of our culture."

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Few things amaze me more than the ability of the Socialist Right (a.k.a. Christian social conservatives) to feel oppressed by the fact that there are people out there who just aren’t like them. This whole non-existent “war on Christmas” is the latest, greatest example.

So let’s take a yuletide look at this latest, silliest, conservative distraction from the real issues of the season.

First off, over the years "the holiday season” has referred specifically to the time around and between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That's not one, but two holidays, logically requiring a plural reference.

For most of us, “the season” covers time our kids are out of school, the workplace slows to a crawl and we often take time off for family, friends, football and general relaxation. That’s why we like “the season”, generally anchored on each end by Christmas Eve, where most of us get to go home early, and New Year’s, which heralds back to school and work. For marketing purposes, and sometimes family too, Thanksgiving gets wrapped into the “season” too.

In short, “Happy Holidays” makes perfect sense if we’re referring to the holidays , more than one, please note, and it’s a lot easier on the tongue than saying “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” for a month or two.

We, all of us, Bible thumper, secular, Jew, all of us, like “the holiday season” because it brings us closer to friends and family, and inspires end of the year reflection on what the past twelve months meant. For the spiritually-inclined, it’s a chance to get closer to the Constitutionally-protected spiritual path one has chosen. For my Jewish friends, this means making more out of a minor holiday just to keep pace with the goyim. So, we greet each other with a holiday greeting to wish the -other person- a fine time over the course of the season. It has nothing to do with how we wish to celebrate the season.

If we wish anyone and everyone “Merry Christmas!” then we’re assuming anyone and everyone’s celebrating Christmas. This ignores our Jewish, pagan and Kwanzaa-celebrating crowd, along with agnostic, atheist and generally secular folks who still celebrate Christmas because it’s fun to share joy and presents regardless of the initial reason for the season.

If we wish “Happy Holidays!” then we’re able to wish joy and happiness on someone regardless of how they happen to find it come December. It also ignores the perfectly decent holiday called New Year’s Day, where Americans pay honor to another spiritual quest, the search for the perfect Bowl Game.

And this is precisely what bugs the Socialist Right.

They want a society where anyone who doesn’t feel as they do in any way is made to feel like a pariah. Or infidel. “Merry Christmas! Sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable, you un-American heathen weirdo. If you just prayed to my interpretation of God, maybe you wouldn’t feel this way, eh?” And it’s the duty of every marketing device throughout the season to enforce their call to mission.

How dare companies, individuals and anyone and anything actually refer to the plural holidays involved and, the high crime, respect and acknowledge individual spiritual belief and holiday practice? They only practice this kind of rampant uncontrolled individualism in America, not here ... America.

This just ain't right, in their religious collectivist view. Given the power to command Wal-Mart and others to say “Merry Christmas” and nothing else, does any calm observer of the movement believe they wouldn’t do it? That they see it as perfectly acceptable to use the state’s power (after they’ve stripped it of any ability to do meet any real needs) devoted to requiring that we all march to the same hymnal?

The "War" is just another tired refrain in the Socialist Right’s demand than anyone who doesn’t help them bully others into their way of thinking and acting is bullying them –them- in turn. "We're oppressed in the fact that we can't oppress you!!" It’s an assault on the Constitution and the core being of the American political character.

So, in response one and all, wish everyone around you the best holiday season ever in whatever form you wish. It’s the spirit behind the season which counts, not the specific greeting. If in doubt about how to approach it, just ask yourself, “What would Thomas Jefferson (noted Deist) say?”

And if you just happen to run across some goofy minister parading in front of your shopping mall and ranting about Christmas as you go about your holiday spending spree, just smile pleasantly at him, call out, “Hail Satan!” and make the two-fingered sign of the horn (first and index fingers pointed up). Rock his world. It’s good for him. He needs it.

Postscripts:

For a little more holiday enlightenment, go here for a little bit of the fascinating history of the Christmas holiday.

Finally, go here for real reasons you should feel blessed this season.

The Federal Republic of Earth

It was a minor scene in Star Trek: Enterprise, the speaker noted, but it said everything about where the show believed that we can and will go in the future.The famous starship captain had just finished a call-in interview from space with a grade school class back on Earth. “Now class, let’s say the pledge”, the teacher said. The class replied, “We pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the Federal Republic of Earth …”.

The speaker, Tad Daley, visionary, professor, advisor and congressional candidate, (go here for the full bio) came to Sacramento to speak a presumably supportive collection of Unitarians and fellow travelers on a warm October 2005 Sunday afternoon. Having always been a fan of Star Trek in part due to the vision of planetary unity (a popular theme in science fiction) and the speaker’s views on the United Nations, I just couldn’t resist.

Daley challenged the idea of reforming the UN under current proposals. The fundamental problem, he said, it’s that it’s still a collection of states and can therefore only serve particularly state interests. We need to “reinvent” it, he said. This requires connecting the body with people, not national governments. Reinvention requires: 1. Direct election of representatives to a new arm of the body

2. Expanding membership of the Security Council and ending of the single veto in favor of majority or supermajority decision making.

3. A separate funding system for reliable and independent revenues

4. A volunteer peacekeeping force not provided by nation states but by individuals

Direct election of representatives to a new “Assembly” body would put UN and international issues on the political burner for the average person. Citing the European Parliament as an example, he said such a move would likely encourage development of international political party alliances, as groups with common international interests would find cause and reason to find common ground, as we see in national campaigns and elections today. It’s a matter of fundamental right, Daley said. We all live on the same planet. Why should our political representation stop at the water’s edge?

My own view is that this body should replace the current General Assembly, which has fallen into obscurity after initially being established to provide a similar “legislative” function as Daley prescribes for his Assembly. It was the General Assembly, in fact, which approved the partition of Palestine which led to the successful birth of Israel. It’s never held that kind of political power or responsibility since.

Daley holds that the Security Council is an anachronistic relic of the post-WW2 arrangements and subsequent Cold War. It needs to be expanded and the power of a single nation to block action removed. The current veto arrangement, he says, is the UN’s most undemocratic process and frustrates the will of the majority to deal with real issues.

Now, personally, I’m not too sure about this part. Passing resolutions which would simply be unenforceable against larger powers would lead to frustration and the appearance of impotence at a time it needs to appear stronger. It seems to envisage the Council as morphing into an international Senate to complement the two current and proposed Assembly bodies. The practical point of the Security Council was to have the countries with the most firepower accountable and responsible for keeping the peace, since they had the guns to do it. Unless the UN is willing and able to develop a consequent military force able to take on, say, Iran, then the current arrangement, as frustrating as it can be and as undemocratic as it may be, should stay put for now. As a compromise, certain acts, such as economic sanctions or non-binding censure motions could be taken out from under the veto. This would empower nations who at least want to get a loud opinion on a matter spoken and heard.

One of the problems our constitutional founders had to deal with was Congress’s initial inability to raise direct revenue. The UN faces the same problem, always subject to blackmail by nations looking to use national contributions for political purposes. The solution is simple. Give the UN an independent revenue source. Daley proposes a modest tax on international currency exchanges. Average people won’t have to pay it, the system for collecting it already exists and given the size of the exchanges made on an annual basis would bring in enough revenue to fund the body.

What would the revenue pay for? Among other things, an international peacekeeping force made up not of national forces, but by volunteers who signed on to the UN directly. The forces would require transport and support, and would be authorized to shoot and defend themselves if necessary. The Secretary-General could order them in during a clear humanitarian crisis, or the Council could authorize an extended deployment, Daley proposed. These arrangements could be worked out. But imagine, one in the audience said, if such a force existed today then Rwanda and Sudan, where those massacred don’t have the benefit of oil to interest outside powers, could have been prevented.

Visionary? Yep. But likely too, and Americans of all people should see this. The Civil War was fought over whether the land was one nation or a collection of sovereign states. With the Commies’ fall ending the Cold War, our own global “Civil War” has ended. We just haven’t worked out how to unite, or reunite, if we go back to before the rise of the nation-state, the world. But it’ll happen. The great story of the 19th century was the struggle to develop stable nation-states (US, Germany, Italy as example, Austria-Hungary as an example of how not to do it). The 20th century was marked by the assault on liberal democratic national ideals by nightmarish nationalist (including Communism as it developed) ideologies. It seems logical then that the 21st century be the time we all learn the pledge to the Federal Republic of Earth.

Besides, after that happens, can faster-than-light space travel be far behind?

Go here for more information on what we can do to reinvent the United Nations.

Rising to the Occasion

Even the major news magazines are taking Bush to task for “living in a bubble”, surrounding himself with cronies and sycophants tell him just what he wants to hear. He needs to break out of this, the pundits opine, and put more challenging people around him. As some say, you know, like Lincoln did during the Civil War.

The Lincoln comparison comes out of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s recent book “Team of Rivals”, a brilliant look at the political genuis of Abraham Lincoln as seen through his selection and use of his Cabinet. I can recommend the book even more, it's a great Christmas gift, but what gets me is that so many can look at this story and expect George Bush, Jr. of all people to rise to this level.

George Bush, Jr. is a very small man who has succeeded at nothing except serving as amiable front man for corporate raids on the national treasury and neoconservative international dreams. If left to his own devices he’d hardly be able to run the local butcher shop. There’s absolutely nothing in his personal or political resume which would lead a reasonable person to think he’d come close to some Lincoln-esque gesture. He’s risen to the Oval Office through the “undying loyalty” of people who seem his as a convenient figure, knowing that they would always be able to pull the strings.

Our popular image of Lincoln is of a simple “western” man from small-town Illinois who rose to the occasion. The truth is, people around Lincoln at the time of his ascendancy recognized him for a clever lawyer and shrewd politician. He was extremely well read. The “rube” image came out of the East, in particular from William Seward (a Republican presidential candidate from New York) loyalists and New Englanders, who shared the big city’s sneer of the backcountry yokels. Lincoln’s peculiar talent for communication came from being able to translate big ideas into words and phrases the common man and woman could relate to.

Bush speaks in all-too-common language but nothing in his life shows that he’s turning Aristotle into plain English. Unlike Lincoln, he is what he is. This means he’ll be surrounding himself with people whispering sweet political nothings into his ear and kissing his presidential rump until 2009.

“Stay the course.” Why would or could he do anything else?

10 Things In Football

10 Things In Football That Sound Dirty


1. The hole closed on him before he could penetrate it.

2. He's off to the sidelines for a quick blow.

3. It's a game of inches.

4. When you get down in this area, you just gotta start pounding.

5. He's gonna feel that one tomorrow.

6. He found his tight end.

7. He had to stretch to get it in.

8. He could go all the way.

9. He goes deep.

10. He found a hole and slid through it.


Is it any wonder this game is so popular?